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Comment by marcell | Hacker News Reader

1. These salaries are for Bootcamp graduates, which means they'll be lower than someone with 5 years experience in programming.

2. These salaries are likely for the Bay Area, where a 1br apartment can cost you $3k+, and your tax rate will be 35% (state + federal). It's not comparable to places with lower tax rates and lower cost of living.

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Background and location are listed. Not all are SF, not all are Bootcamp.

Location does make a huge difference. I make $110,000 as a CTO with 20 years experience but if you calculate for cost of living differences that is $164,162 in San Fransisco.

Although I'm probable still underpaid if #1 is true... some of these salaries are approaching that.

$110K as a CTO does seem low to me. Do you mind if I ask where you live?

New Hampshire. But commuting distance to Boston, MA since I live on the border and Boston is pretty close to the border.

I started as a Senior Software Engineer and kept getting promoted but not getting any higher pay. As a Senior Software Engineer in 2013 it was great pay. CTO in 2017... not so much.

For various reasons I'm eating the lower pay though. It's rough but I'm ok with it for now.

If you are ok commuting to Cambridge MA, you can get the SF figure +/- you cited as developer (assuming proper skills/experience) and still live in NH. Not a great commute, but I know a few folks who commute from NH. If you're interested, my team is hiring :)

I'm just moving out of the cambridge area, but still have friends in the area. Can you share your company name?

For my team you can email me at "jobs.av (at) outlook.com", but you can see from glassdor same salaries at Microsoft,Gooogle,Amazon are hiring in Kendall square.

CTO out of Brookline, MA

Do you attend any CTO meetups in the area?

I make within $5k of you and live in semi-suburban/semi-rural Pennsylvania (not near Philly or Pittsburgh!). COL is in the high 80's where national median is 100. I'm not even in management. My boss is in the $130-140 range and his boss is probably $180-200. (Glassdoor is a beautiful thing)

For your retirement account alone you need to get a better job with something at least approaching a market rate salary.

I earn far less than that, as CTO of a Southern California e-commerce company.

The salaries in this spreadsheet seem incredibly high for one year of experience.

You're being screwed over unless your other compensation is high. In the mid-west a good Senior engineer can pull in 100k.

The salaries aren't high. It's just that you're getting screwed.

Google and FB pay new grads $180k total comp, ~$110k cash.

From what I can tell, these are on par with new grad comp. So it seems getting a degree is useless.

That seems low. I have friends in engineering (not software, more like aerospace) with much less seniority and in low cost areas who are paid about the same. I live in the Bay Area and am a "Principal Engineer" and my salary is more than the adjusted figure you quoted.

Then again, as CTO it surely is the case your bonus and equity grants result in net comp that is more than that.

Depending on location, equity, industry, you probably should be making north of $200k.

I've just graduated school with a bachelor's and I've been offered 150k total comp (medium size city, but not SF). If you're as skilled as your years of experience and title suggest I would suggest you could probably be making more if you wanted.

They still don't make a lot of sense. Bootcamp grads getting titles of things like "Lead Developer" and some salaries as much as $180K? I'm not buying that.

not everyone who filled this out went to bootcamp

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